Me

It’s paying off

/ hsoi

So I’ve only been doing it for a couple of weeks, but paying myself first sure feels good.

I’m getting things accomplished, and the day job isn’t suffering either. I feel a bit more balanced, and more things are getting cleaned off my plate. Heck, my email inbox doesn’t require scrolling any more to see the complete contents! 🙂

Yes it requires a higher level of discipline. I can’t keep doing “my work” all morning lest “their work” suffer, so I have to watch the clock and cut myself off. Or I may have to portion and schedule tasks because that task will take two hours to do so it’ll have to wait for tomorrow. I also have found that I’m spending less time on less important things, like keeping up with Facebook. Heck, I’ve given up almost every game on there… well, to be fair I only played Mafia Wars (yeah yeah I know) and Poker, but MW isn’t fun any more and was just a huge time sink. I haven’t touched it in a while now. And poker is poker… no big deal there, I’ll keep that one indulgence (along with Angry Birds on my iPhone). But that I’m doing less of the less-productive stuff is also good. Oh sure, I still make time to play with Wife, Kiddos, and dog (went out and had a nice cigar yesterday evening in the backyard with Wife and Puppy; finished reading book 2 of the “How to Train your Dragon” series to Daughter). All work and no play is closer to how my Dad operates, not me. 🙂

But I’m happy with how this is going. The real test will be if I’ll still be in this mode 3-6 months from now. I’m going to try.

And because of this mode well… I’m going to do something fun later this morning. I’ll report back later.

She loves texting

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Daughter loves texting.

Wife and I have been conservative in our mobile phone use, which parlays into our choice of service plans. Once Wife got her own iPhone (instead of the old crappy phone we once had), then her friends learned about it, Wife started to receive and thus send lots of text messages. The same happened to me, I blame Jay. 🙂  Originally we did AT&T’s minimum 200 msg/month plan, but I quickly realized that as each month passed we got closer and closer to our limit.

I caved and went for the Unlimited plan. It was only $5/month more, so why not.

I’m glad I did.

Daughter LOVES texting.

My father-in-law had a triple bypass surgery a couple of weeks ago. Wife and Kiddos have travelled up to be there, help out, etc.. I would go, but there’s work and well… Sasha is still a high-maintenance dog (we’re working on this, another topic for another time). So since they are gone and I am home, Daughter misses her Daddy.

She makes up for it by texting.

She uses Wife’s iPhone and folks… I’ll tell you this girl can type. I think texting is improving her spelling, her typing speed, everything. Plus, I think it’s great that she finds it a fun way to be close to Dad even when she can’t be close to Dad.

At this point what I want is an iPhone service plan that doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg. 😉

Pay Yourself First

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I first learned of the concept from the Motley Fool guys: Pay Yourself First. I try to do that as much as I can with finances, but I realized that I haven’t been doing it enough with the rest of my life.

For instance, I wake up and immediately the mindset starts into “going to work”. If I’m going to do anything for myself, it tends to be something done at night after work, and many times I’m too drained or tired to put effort into it. Consequently, my own projects suffer.

Well, I’m trying to “pay myself first” in other areas. Let’s see how it goes. Wake up, do my own thing for a few hours. Yes, I still have to portion things right to give proper time to the day job. But since there’s no way I’ll neglect that work well, hopefully this will now mean other things won’t get neglected or ignored from lack of time or energy. Hopefully this will pay off for me.

I really want it to pay off for me. I’ve got a bunch of irons in the fire and I want to ensure they get forged to completion. There are also some new things I want to do, and I can’t do them until I clear off my plate.

So close, yet so far.

/ hsoi

I’m filling out form CHL-90, necessary for the renewal of my Texas CHL Instructor certification.

The form asks for my driver license ID number, and then says I need to provide a color photocopy of the driver license.

Why?

This is Texas Department of Public Safety. You’d think they had access to this information.

Yes yes OK, someone from out of state makes it necessary. But why should a Texas resident with a Texas drivers license getting a Texas CHL Instructor certification renewal, all being matters handled by the same department…. why is this necessary?

Plus with the rest of the renewal process is all electronic forms. So, why can’t form CHL-90 also be electronic? Sure, if we have to submit copies of things (e.g. NRA/TCLEOSE certifications) couldn’t we then mail them in, or better, scan them and upload JPEG’s or PDF’s of those documents?

*sigh*

It’s an improvement in the process for sure, but there’s still room to improve.

Metablogging

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I thought about this last night, and just now as I responded to a blog comment I saw something.

I saw on my blog, the Archives. The archives are listed per month, and next to each month is a number indicating how many posts were made that month. I observed the number going down. Oddly, my readership has gone up. Quality over quantity? I don’t know. 🙂

I haven’t blogged much lately because I just haven’t been feeling it. The job transfer a couple of months ago has left me a little depressed. I am not complaining about the fact I still have a job that pays well with good benefits. It’s just not what I want to work on, plus I think there’s a lot of misguided behavior. Let’s just say that while I love money and have no problem making it or with people who wish to make as much money as they can, to chase money for the sake of money rarely pays off in the long run. If you solve true problems, you do much better. If you make software (or any product) that doesn’t suck AND that solves people’s problems or truly makes their life easier and/or better, you do better. I’ll leave you with two quotes:

Virtue does not come from money, but rather from virtue comes money and all other things good to man – Socrates

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clarke

To me, software should “just work”. You shouldn’t have to think about it. I guess that’s why I like Mac because, on the whole, the design ethic of Good Mac Software strives to “just work”.  And yes, to some level that makes it indistinguishable from magic… at least at first, because eventually we get used to it and it becomes the norm.

Yet, I just haven’t felt it to write. I remember when I started the blog, it was because I was wanting to join that “gun blogger” community. And while at first I blogged heavily about gun stuff, I just can’t find myself blogging solely about gun stuff. There are folks like Sebastian or Joe Huffman or The Firearm Blog that do such a better job than I ever could. Yes, I feel a little guilty about it because I know part of my readership is here because of gun stuff. But I also did realize from the get-go that a single-topic blog is hard to do, thus it’s “Stuff from Hsoi: writing about whatever interests me, and maybe you”. I left it totally open-ended. I know that I myself change. I learn new things, I explore new things. I will change, I will evolve, I will grow. Consequently, whatever I’d want to write about would change. I’m glad I left things open.

I still strive to post at least one thing every day. So far, I’ve been succesful at that. Doesn’t mean I have to write every day… sometimes I’ll write things and queue them up for posting later (the “schedule” feature is useful!). But I want to ensure one post a day, because hey… if you’re going to read, you want there to be something to read, right? Of course, I still wonder why people want to read what I have to say, because I’m just some guy… I’m no one special.

Anyways, I shall continue to write, tho the topics may change. It will be what it will be. Numbers and stats may feed the ego, but they don’t mean a whole lot in the end. I mean, I’m not writing this to see how much stuff I can post in a month or how many readers I can get. I’m writing because I like to write, even if it’s meaningless ramble like this. 🙂

Mead – my first experience

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

It caught my eye one day while strolling down an aisle at Spec’s,

Mead.

I’ve heard about it throughout my life. One of the oldest beverages. The nectar of the gods. Vikings. Ren Fairs. And so on. But I’ve never tasted or experienced it in any way, other than lore. After seeing it for sale that one day, I figured one of these days I’d have to try it.

Today is that day.

There wasn’t a lot of variety on the shelf. And having no idea what’s what, I picked this one from Redstone Meadery. I picked it because it was “traditional”. The others all appeared to be mead with stuff, like fruits or herbs or whatever. I figure for a first time, I ought to try just “plain old mead”.

The first thing that struck me was reading the label: honey wine. I admit, I had no idea that’s what it was. Sounded interesting.

So I got home, put it into the fridge for a few hours. It was quite helpful that the label explained a few things, like serving temperature. I get the feeling the folks at Redstone know mead is obscure and most people won’t know how to deal with it. So it’s cool they dedicate some label space to the essential questions. A few minutes ago I popped open the bottle and poured some.

The first thing that struck me was, of course, the honey. Wow. The smell is wonderful, if you like honey. That’s what it smells like: a good honey. Then there are other smells, including the “wine/alcohol” that hits you. Not in a bad way, just that it’s not honey. Of course, it’s much less viscous than honey.

The taste?

Honey. Drinkable honey.

It’s actually more complex than that, but of course, that’s the dominant flavor. Even the mouthfeel is honey-like, tho again, not as viscous.

There’s something about it I don’t like. I’m not sure where to place it. It may be the “alcohol-ish overtones” that just don’t jive to my brain: honey isn’t supposed to taste like that! But there’s also something that I really like, because when you bring the glass up to drink and your nose enters the glass and inhales, all that honey smell is wonderful. If I just sit and smell it for a while, it’s really a nice smell; so many subtle overtones. I will say, after having consumed a bit now, I’m starting to feel like I’ve consumed too much sweet stuff. It’s rich. Very vibrant and alive. So while my brain and tastebuds are still figuring things out, the simple fact I keep going back for more tells me there’s certainly something I like and certainly something I wish to continue to explore.

I may end up not liking it. But for now, this is… an adventure. I’ll finish this bottle. Then I’d like to try some of their other “flavored” meads to see what those are like. Then I’d like to try other brands. Might even try it really cold, and maybe even warm it a bit. I figure after once I explore it enough, I’ll know if I really like it or not. But I do like it enough to want to finish this bottle, continue to make sense of the flavors and smells and overall experience, and then go back for more.

One thing that perked my interest. I’ve always thought beekeeping would be kinda cool. Wouldn’t it be interesting to have my own bees and make my own mead? Ah, what fun. 🙂

Off to pour another glass.

Necessary tool support

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Yes, you need tools. Good tools. Things break, you have to fix them. Screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, hammers… and the many variants that exist of these things.

But sometimes we need things to support the tools. Tools alone don’t cut it.

WD-40.

Duct tape.

3-in-One oil.

Goo Gone.

Electricians tape. Masking tape. Teflon tape.

Liquid Wrench.

That last one is a favorite. I think my little vial of it is geez… maybe a couple of decades old. You only need a little bit, and you don’t need it all that often. But when you need it, nothing else works like it does. When the guy came this morning to install the new washing machine, of course he had to turn off the hot and cold water supplies. When he turned the hot supply back on, it started to leak from the valve stem. We could tighten it and get it to stop, but it didn’t really stop. Went to Lowes to get a replacement spigot. Trying to remove the old spigot? Oh my. I guess 25+ years of lime and calcium build-up, and the spigot would not budge. Liquid Wrench to the rescue. Soak it, tap on the spigot threads, crank and cuss… wipe off what was loosened, repeat numerous times cussing louder each time. I didn’t have a solid combination wrench large enough so I had to use adjustable combination wrenches (Craftsman), and I swear I was close to breaking them, it was that stubborn. Eventually, with more soaking and cranking, she gave. Thank you, Liquid Wrench.

Fishing spots?

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

Alright local folk. I’m looking for spots to go fishing. I need your input.

1. Needs to be relatively nearby (e.g. South/Southwest Austin, but anywhere that’s not too far a drive I’ll accept).

2. Needs to be accessible and fishable from the bank. I don’t have a boat.

3. Free is best, cheap is OK. I’m hoping this could be something where I could slip off to for a couple of hours on a weekday morning every so often. So, not having to spend a lot of money is a plus. Kiddos would probably go with me too, so again low to no cost is ideal.

And of course, if you have any specific input about what sort of fish are there, what they’re biting on, any particular good techniques for that body of water, all input welcome. 🙂

Thanx.

Bought a washing machine

/ hsoi

So with the old washing machine dying, today we went shopping to buy a new washer.

At the urging of a friend, I avoided the big box stores. Went to a couple local places and ended up buying from Depew Appliances. Not a bad place, glad I went there.

We ended up with a Maytag Series 2000 (MHWE200XW).

Why that one?

Well, first it was one of the least expensive models they had on the floor. I sunk around $2000 into that Kenmore Elite HE3t 8 years ago expecting it to last me 15-20 or more years. If things are just going to break in 5-8 years and be too costly to repair, I just don’t see the logic in sinking lot of money into this stuff. Sure, I still want to get something that will take good care of my clothes, that has the cycles/features Wife wants, and that doesn’t suck. But $1000+ on a washer? I just can’t justify that outlay. So, low price tag was a plus. BTW, this washer ended up being about the same price as the replacement tub for the HE3t… couple that with labor and the rest of the parts? I could buy a couple washers. It’s a shame that “disposable” is how it is but working in the software world I understand “upgrade revenue” because if you make a product that lasts 40 years, while people will love it today’s business world can’t support that business model any more. Pity.

Second, ConsumerReports.org rated it a “best buy” (click to see the review, if you have a subscription), and I’ve generally had good experience when I buy something they rate well. So, I’m hoping the positive trend will continue. I will say, this is one huge reason why I finally got a smartphone. The ability to have “Internet in my hands” out in the field is invaluable. I purchased my ConsumerReports.org subscription while Wife drove to the stores, then did searches and researching on models and prices while in the stores. Hooray technology! It certainly helped me narrow down the choices to what appeared to be the best buy. What reviews I could find on this model were positive. So, here’s hoping.

And of course, it had the features and things that Wife wanted. So, all good there!

I admit, the price was listed slightly lower at HomeDepot.com and a few other online places, but I still bought from Depew. Yes, after showing the sales guy that I could get it cheaper elsewhere, he did give me a price lower than on the sales tag. Still a hair higher but it was in the ballpark so, good enough. I didn’t feel like getting into a haggle-fest. It was an acceptable price, and I’m happy to help out Mom & Pop shops.

We’ll see how it works out. Hopefully it won’t suck, and if it can last at least 5 years the well…. I guess I’ll be ahead of the curve. They deliver Monday.